Thornton Treatment Centers

Thornton, Colorado, is home to approximately 82,384 people. It is found in Adams County and is located around 8 miles outside of Arvada and 4 miles outside of Westminster. During the 1990s, the city experienced a 50% growth in population. Today, the population continues to grow, but at a slower rate of around 5.3%. There is a significant drug and alcohol abuse problem in the city. This is reflected in the fact that its levels of property crimes are higher than the average in Colorado. However, there is an equally positive correlation with violent crimes, and those rates are lower in Thornton than what they are in the rest of the state.

Drug and Alcohol Abuse in Thornton, CO

Thornton officials have collated the results of a number of studies to get an overall picture of the current problem with substance dependency and addiction in the city. These studies found that:

• 9.3% of people over the age of 12 admit that they require treatment for a substance abuse disorder.
• 11.2% of those who require treatment (1% of the entire population) go out to receive this treatment in a detox and rehab facility.
• There has been no improvement in the above two statistics since 2002.

This is of significant concern to Thornton officials, and they have put various intervention efforts in place in order to increase access to treatment. These include offering payment plans for people so that financial barriers are removed. Furthermore, the city is considering starting a dedicated drug court. At present, people can be court ordered into treatment by judges at the Colorado Judicial Bench, or through probation. The successes in other parts of the country when they ordered nonviolent offenders into treatment instead of sending them to jail has given rise to the need of a similar court system in Colorado.

Other statistics looked at young people (between the ages of 12 and 17) and tobacco abuse. This is because tobacco is a known gateway drug to other addictive substances. What they found was that:

• There was little change in the number of young people who have used tobacco in the past month between 2008 and 2009 - 11.4% to 11.6%.
• Cigarette use saw a decline from 13% to 8.9% in that same time period.
• Smokeless tobacco saw an increase from 2.0% to 2.3% between 2008 and 2009.

Thornton has put a number of educational and outreach resources in place to help young people avoid tobacco, steering them towards healthy alternatives instead. Parents and the community as a whole are encouraged to take part in these efforts.

Lastly, the city authorities wanted to determine which drugs were the greatest threat in the future. What they found was that most people who were first initiated to illicit substances, tried cannabis. In second place for substance abuse initiation was prescription painkillers. Of significant concern for officials here is that these drugs often lead to other substances, including heroin. Hence, significant efforts have been put in place to help people avoid using these substances and going down the road of dependency and addiction later on in life.